On the Narrative Features of British Sitcoms: Take The IT Crowd and Yes, Prime Minister as Examples

In recent years, British TV dramas have been a glaring phenomenon and the “new favorite” of fans who love watching overseas TV plays. This paper takes two TV dramas of The IT Crowd and Yes, Prime Minister for case studies, explores the narrative features of British sitcom from dramatic narrative tendency, core narration of “people”, self-deprecating humor, unity of conflict and social significance, concludes three points of inspiration for China’s film and television creation: “learn” instead of “imitate”, “serious” instead of “funny”, “modern” as well as “traditional.”

Forecasting demand for long-term care based on multistate piecewise constant Markov process

This paper forecasts demand for long-term care based on multistate piecewise constant Markov process. Two types of data are mainly used in this study. The first type of data came from the Chinese Longitudinal Healthy Longevity Survey (CLHLS), 2008-2011. The second type of data came from the China’s Demographic Yearbook of 2016, used as the number of population in the base period. It finds that the changes in health have a significant difference in gender and age. It also finds that under different health states, the distribution of duration of staying in each state in different gender and age groups shows a characteristic similar to the distribution of population size

Eleutheroside E inhibits doxorubicin-induced inflammation and apoptosis in rat cardiomyocytes by modulating activation of NF-κB pathway

Purpose: To identify the effects of eleutheroside E (EE) on apoptosis and   inflammation induced by doxorubicin (DOX) in H9c2 cells and to investigate the underlying mechanisms.Methods: The effect of EE on H9c2 cell viability was determined using Cell Counting Kit-8 (CCK8). EE effect on DOX-induced apoptosis and inflammation in H9c2 cells was studied by comparison between cells treated with DOX alone and DOX+EE; the relationship between EE effects and NF-κB signaling pathway was evaluated by the addition of NF-κB inhibitor PDTC. Cell apoptosis was examined by flow cytometry while IL-1β, IL-6, and TNF-α levels were determined by ELISA. The phosphorylation level of NF-κB p65 was measured by Western blot.Results: Compared with control group, cell viability was notably elevated after  treatment with 50-100 μM EE for 48 or 72 h. DOX induced higher rates of cell  apoptosis in H9c2 cells (29.5 ± 3.56 %) compared with control group (6.39 ± 0.67 %); however, with EE pretreatment (50 and 80 μM), apoptosis rate decreased to 16.8 ± 2.16 and 13.54 ± 2.08 %, respectively, which are significantly lower than that of DOX group; furthermore, the levels of IL-1β, IL-6, and TNF-α also reduced. In addition, DOX-induced phosphorylation of NF-κB p65 was suppressed by EE pretreatment (10, 50 and 80 μM) to 11.51 ± 1.25, 40.2 ± 5.17 and 52.97 ± 6.74 %, respectivelyConclusion: The results suggest that EE treatment reduced DOX-induced apoptosis and inflammation by interacting with NF-κB signaling pathway. This finding sheds some light on probable new strategies on the application of DOX for cancer treatment.Keywords: Eleutheroside E, Doxorubicin, Inflammation, Apoptosis, Cardiomyocytes, NF-κ

A New Behavior of Nuclei during Mitosis of Lilium Hybrids

Mitosis is nuclear division plus cytokinesis,and produces two identical daughter cells during prophase, prometaphase, metaphase, anaphase, and telophase. However, a new nucleus behavior in interspecific hybrid progenies of Lilium was observed in our experiment. Very unusual behaviors of nuclei surprisingly presented during the mitosis, such as sprouting or germination, tube-like elongation, penetrating cell membrane into a neighbor cell, the top of nuclei tube expanding, intruding and splitting of the tube-like nucleus, and micronucleus formation, and so on. Furthermore, the tetrad of meiosis was founded in mitosis of root.

Routine of the unusual nucleus behaviors observed in our experiment may be summarized as nucleus germination¬— tube-like elongation— penetrating cell membrane— entering a neighbor cell—the top of nuclei tube expanding—tube ingression and splitting— formation of a new nucleus or micronucleus.

Many kinds of abnormal mitosis caused by chemical and physical induction such as unequal division, chromosome bridges, lagging chromosomes, and multiple nuclei have resulted in variations of chromosome number and structure. However, this new nucleus behavior is firstly reported, these phenomena implied that the DNA maybe easily emigrates from one cell to another. Therefore, the unusual behaviors of nuclei in hybrid progenies of Lilium not only create mutations for breeding of new cultivars, also produce possibly ideal materials for exotic DNA or gene transfication with simple method in meristem. This mode of nuclei behaviors is a new addition to cytogenetics of plant of vegetative propagation and provide a new genetic mechanism of species evolution from interspecific hybridization

A series of nano/micro-sized metal-organic frameworks with tunable photoluminescence properties

Present studies on metal-organic frameworks (MOF) mainly focus on macro-scaled single crystals. However, the realization of MOF nanocrystals via a bottom-up one-step method still remains a significant challenge. Here, hierarchically assembled nanostructures of lanthanide-based MOFs with 1D and 3D morphologies have been successfully fabricated via a simple and rapid solution phase method at room temperature. Upon UV excitation, these nanomaterials exhibit highly efficient tunable luminescence properties, which come from the Eu3+ or Tb3+ ions. Moreover, white-light emission can be achieved by co-activating the organic ligand, Eu3+ and Tb3+ ions in the nano-MOFs. This journal i

ESG performance and corporate value: Analysis from the stakeholders’ perspective

Based on the panel data of China’s A-share non-financial listed enterprises from 2011 to 2020, we empirically explore whether EGS performance can significantly promote corporate value and how to promote it, from the stakeholders’ perspective. We find that: 1) ESG performance significantly improves corporate value. 2) Both media attention and analyst coverage play an intermediary role in the impact of ESG performance on corporate value. 3) Further analysis of the single dimension of ESG illustrates that Environmental (E) and Social (S) have a positive impact on corporate value, but the effect size of Social (S) is smaller, and there is no evidence for a significant relationship between Governance (G) and corporate value. 4) The heterogeneity analysis shows that ESG performance of non-heavily polluting enterprises has a significant positive effect on corporate value, but not on heavily polluting enterprises. Meanwhile, ESG performance of enterprises with a low percentage of institutional investor ownership has a significant positive effect on corporate value, but not with a high percentage. Overall, our study shows that high-quality ESG performance triggers the attention of media and analysts, which in turn promotes corporate value by raising stakeholder pressure. We also analyze the possible causes of heterogeneous results from the perspective of stakeholders, and put forward reasonable suggestions to promote ESG performance and corporate value, as well as protect the interests of stakeholders

Association Between Stigma Towards HIV and MSM and Intimate Partner Violence Among Newly HIV-Diagnosed Chinese Men Who Have Sex With Men

Background: HIV- and MSM-related stigma are well documented as common for Chinese men who have sex with men (MSM) living with HIV, yet there is sparse literature on intimate partner violence (IPV) and its relationship with stigma in this vulnerable population. To evaluate the association between HIV-stigma and stigma related to homosexuality and IPV among newly HIV-diagnosed MSM in China. Methods: Data were collected in the baseline survey among newly HIV-diagnosed Chinese MSM in a randomized clinical trial via face-to-face interviews. Univariate logistic and multivariate logistic regression analyses were performed to assess the associations between IPV and HIV- and MSM-related stigma. Results: Of 367 newly HIV-diagnosed Chinese MSM, 23.7% experienced any IPV, including 16.6% physical, 7.4% psychological and 5.2% sexual IPV. Positive associations were found between HIV- and MSM-related stigma and IPV. Men with high HIV-related stigma (score ≥ 27) were 1.67 times as likely to experience any IPV as those with low stigma (adjusted odds ratio [AOR]: 1.67, 95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.02-2.76). Men with high MSM-related stigma (score ≥ 6) were 1.99 times as likely to experience any IPV as those with low stigma (AOR: 1.99, 95% CI: 1.18-3.36). Conclusions: HIV- and MSM-related stigmas was positively associated with IPV experiences among newly diagnosed MSM in China. The manner in which stigma may exacerbate IPV, and/or the influence of IPV on worsening stigma should be further evaluated. The high prevalence of IPV and stigma in this population suggests that interventions should be taken to reduce stigma and prevent this risky behavior among MSM